Underneath
by BrokenPoet12
Summary: Post Zein un Zeit and Closure. "He had his limits. She'd already surpassed hers." Angsty. Basically about reflection and the way grief really adds up. It's a poor summary but a better story.


Summary: Not much to say really. Plotless..for now at least. Angst and Romance. Spoilers for and Post Zein un Zeidt and Closure

Rating: T-M to be safe

Disclaimer: Not mine. There, now I can't be sued.

Underneath

By Poet

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The water circled slowly. Each drop turned into a stream that would eventually be captured in the small whirlpool created by the drain. Hypnotically it circled down pausing only rarely, sometimes catching on smooth patches of skin before it would grow too heavy to hold itself aloft. Always though, it would fall and circle away. Away from the molding tile and the moment where he remained trapped.

He stood underneath a flow of water almost torturously hot. Hands splayed out, across the slick shower wall in an effort to support the burden of his heavy and exhausted frame. Unmoving, barely breathing he remained as he had for the last few endless moments. Allowing minute satisfaction to pass as the water burned hotter and hotter across the assaulted skin of his back, he closed his eyes and returned his head to the abuse of the spray.

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She had been staring down the door for a long while. The hypnotic flow of the shower behind the flimsy partition soothed her. Far from the warmth, she would allow the briefest of chills to be pushed away by the thought of hot water. It had only worked the first few times before she realized the chills were not borne of cold. They were from him. From the ordeal he had been through and the impact it was already having.

The man no more then fifteen feet from her was as walled off as if he had been in another town. The silence had settled gradually, moving from comfortable to tormenting to inevitable. He had his limits. She had surpassed hers.

He had not been rude in shutting her out. It was just a step away. Though it was something she had grown unaccustomed to in the last few years of her relationship with him. Her steps away had always been perfectly calculated. His and the separation that resulted left a glaring uncertainty between them.

Now her feet moved her in an unbidden step, towards him and towards the half-closed door. Another left her barely a nose away from the cheap white wood. Humid air escaped through the gap in the door. The water must have been hot. The feeling of the warmth was comforting, but her comfort had come at the cost of one more abuse he'd inflicted on himself. Another shiver came and went as another step was taken.

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Neither of them moved even when the telltale squeak of the door announced her entrance. Leaning lightly against the doorframe her eyes took in his obscured image through the glass door of the shower. Angry red skin at his shoulders faded into an inconsistent pattern at his back, where the hot water would not reach. The appeal of the wet and nude man before her lost itself somewhere in the space between the two. His shoulders sagged, a posture he assumed more and more. As if a resident weariness would always be present.

Once toned skin looked slack and pale. Even as he shifted slightly and water highlighted more places, the once defined muscle now looked underused. Fingers clenched slightly, in a reflex to the knots she knew would lie just under his skin.

His head turned slightly, imperceptibly to the shifting form on the other side of the foggy glass. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her standing, watching him. No inclination to speak, no desire to interrupt him. Turning his head away again, he smiled gently. But it was short lived and he grimaced as a slight throb passed through his head.

His motion startled her but not as much as the one he made after it. She watched him move suddenly. Lifting a hand to rub gingerly around his temples. A headache again. The harsh sigh he released confirmed it. As he gave up on soothing the pain, she saw his hand lower but it didn't return to it's spot against the shower stall. Instead his fingers came to rest against the glass of the shower door.

Her eyes wouldn't move from the place where his hand rested. Upsetting the pattern of steam resting on the glass, they pressed slightly. The door swung open. Only an inch, and then another. From underneath and around the newly broken seam, steam rushed to escape the small cubicle. This time the warmth that surrounded her was guiltless. His invitation was clear in the glaring white light of the fixture.

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He heard the sound of her weight shifting and the sigh escaped before he could contain it. She had turned away. Awash in self pity, he allowed a moment to realize that he had done the same to her that very night. He had retreated into himself. Abhorred by the answer that his lifelong quest had led him to when he should have expected no less. But now this seemingly final rejection came as the blow he would never thought about.

And in the pit of his stomach it burns him worse then the water could ever do. So little left in the world. Except there had always been her. And now...A lone drop of salt water was swept away by the continuing cascade he stood under.

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Her arms coming to rest around his chest startled him. But his effort to turn is stopped as she tightens her grip on him and brings her head to rest against his back. And they stand there underneath the weight of a mutual sorrow. The harsh release of her breath burns him in ways the water didn't. As it soothes the angry red he feels lips press just once between his shoulderblades.

His skin was hot to the touch and gently she reached out, fingers groping blindly for the tap. Turning it, the temperature cooled instantly, allowing a wash of relief to flow in the cooler water. As the heat fell away she felt his chest rise and fall sharply with a sigh. Unconsciously her breathing fell into sync with his. In. Out. In. Out.

Out.

"Scully..."

In.

"I'm here."

Out.

"She's been dead all these years. She's been dead and I couldn't save her."

In.

"She's here too.

And so am I."

Out.

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His turn was slow but determined. His lips descending even as she came into view. The frenzied passion he had always envisioned this scene was lost somewhere between the time her chin lifted and their lips met. Instead it was with an exhausted restraint that he held himself still against her.

For some reason though they were completely undressed in emotion and physicality, the moment could never seem more wrong for mindless passion. And so they were restrained. And everything fell down around them.

Withdrawing, he pulled himself from her lips and from the spray of the showerhead. Suddenly harsh on skin too long abused. Now he resembled some sort of animal, caged within the small confines of the wet stall. His breathing grew harsh and angry and suddenly he slammed his fist into the porcelain tiles. "I couldn't save her! She's dead! It should have been me!"

If she was surprised of frightened by the outburst it was not revealed. His cracks were shattering him, finally after so many years. She ran her eyes over the minute web of cracks in the victim tiles. Reddened by blood that must have come from his hand, they soon ran clean as the spray reached it.

Without a word she took a hold of his wounded right hand. Sending a glare to quiet any protest she turned it over. Splits in two knuckles bled profusely. As if to spite him for trying to get the best of a solid wall. She felt his hand tense as she moved it to rest under the cooled spray of water. Rinsing the wound and the already swelling knuckles. She met his eyes then, for the first time in hours. And the faint hint of a smile found itself mirrored in his features.

"Nothing will change what you've lost Mulder."

His smile was gone and replaced by the harsh exhalation of breath.

"But think of what you've gained."

He couldn't hold himself anymore. Without the shower wall his energy had faded. He crumpled to his knees silently. Folding his long limbs tightly underneath him in the small space. She stepped towards him, and his arms encircled her waist while his head rested against her stomach. Now as her fingers trailed absently through his wet hair, his lips moved lightly around her navel. Pausing here and there to press a bit harder and then moving again.

Hands still entwined, his gentle tug was too inviting to resist and she found herself pulled into his lap. Her knees moved to either side of his hips and he stretched his legs out fully underneath her. They sat there, his back resting against the cold wall, holding her tightly against his chest.

An absent hand, neither sure who it belonged to, snaked up from the embrace long enough to turn the water off. It's warmth had long ago disappeared with the last of the hot water from the cheap motel's water tank. Now heat and steam slowly gave way to the chill present in the room just beyond the glass of the stall.

He began shivering exactly four minutes later but she didn't know the time. Not the slight chill from water evaporating off of skin so used to being warm. But a violent chill from exhaustion and too much grief and stress and anger and sorrow. His body was releasing his demons just as violently as he had.

When she stood his protest was a weak grunt. His eyes were closed and he looked nearly asleep. Kneeling again, she pressed a gentle kiss to his lips and remained there for most of a minute. The slight grown as she pulled away stirred him. And suddenly she found herself drowned by a flash in his hazel eyes.

Still holding tightly to his wounded hand, she tugged him gently and he rose without protest. The world outside of the shower seemed alien and intrusive. The light even brighter then when she had gone in. Now they stood there in a pool of water that had leaked out of the open door. Neither made the move to leave.

The towel moving over him was soft enough to keep him from thinking about how many times it had been used by other people. As her gentle strokes went from one arm to another and then began on his chest he watched her. The tone and flex of the light muscle as her arms moved expertly fascinated him. A lone finger tip traced a path from her right shoulder all the way to her own fingertips.

Her motions stopped on his chest. Her lips moved to the placed her towel had missed. Across his shoulders where she could reach when she stood on her toes. Down again on one arm and then the other. Trails of water kissed away gently. She came to rest at the spot just above his heart.

He had stopped convulsing. Now it was a minor tremble controlled and soothed by every movement of her hands and lips. His fingers tangled gently in her now wet hair. Coming to rest as he framed her face. Hazel met blue and the two seemed to mix into one another as he drew her near again. His kiss was entirely innocent. But it had every meaning he could dress it with. Coming to rest against the cool relief of her forehead he let himself sink into her complete embrace.

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He saw now why she had left. Her clothes and his lay folded neatly on top of his suitcase. The covers of the single bed, the only one available at that time of night, were pulled down. As if waiting. And now as she motioned for him to lay with her, a moment of irrational fear struck him. The light of day would chase everything away. The nightmares and the memories. But he didn't want these stolen moments to leave them.

As if reading the doubt and hesitation from his wordless posture, she offered a smile.

"I accepted the invitation. Now I offer my own."

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Hours later, in the few minutes before sunrise they slept underneath cheap motel sheets. Soothed by each breath, by the warmth of skin.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

The world didn't end.

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The End.

A/N: I'm a bit unhappy with that last section but Im too tired to bother with anything right now.

So give me feedback. Please. I'd like to hear what you think.

PS: Forgive grammar and spelling. Spell check wont catch them all.


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